Prognostic Factors of Septic Arthritis of Hip in Infants and Neonates: Minimum 5-Year Follow-up

Septic arthritis remains an important infection, and is as-sociated with significant mortality and morbidity.1-3) It is well established that the prognosis of septic arthritis in children is associated with site, age, treatment delay, and the organism responsible.4) The hip is known to be the most frequently involved site and has the poorest outcomes of all joints.5,6) This is due to the deep location and aspiration difficulties, and results in complications of osteomyelitis of the neck of the femur in some cases. Many studies have reported that neo-Background: The authors conducted the present study to identify clinical and radiological prognostic factors in infants and neo-nates with septic arthritis of the hip. Methods: The authors retrospectively reviewed the records of 31 patients with septic arthritis of the hip. All of the patients were younger than 18 months old. Follow-up periods ranged from 5 to 17 years. The following potential variables for predicting the prognosis were included in the assessment: gender, age, underlying diseases, duration of symptoms, changes of hip joint in X-ray